


The Tempest Wife

by Thaliona



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 02:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4546077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thaliona/pseuds/Thaliona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maglor oft swore he had married one of Ossë's tempests masquerading as a Telerin nís. The long years that had passed since their volatile separation could not dull the pain of her absence. Observing his daughters' meeting with Elrond dredges up old memories of his wife and a time before the Oath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tempest Wife

  


“There was something tremendously powerful about her  
Like the sea it never mattered whether she was still and serene or in the throes of a storm  
There was always a danger of drowning.”  
Beau Taplin//Seastorm

From a shadowed alcove of Imladris’s gardens, Maglor spied upon a meeting between the child he had raised and the children he had abandoned. All three of which had long since left their youths behind, but only one remembered the Light of the Trees. 

The oldest of his children lounged next to her black-haired sister on a chaise, lips curved into a seemingly pleasant grin that never quite reached dark eyes. Silver hair framed a comely face where the ghost of Fëanor haunted her fine features. Eärmíriel Elvëalin, now simply Elenlir, was said to look like her paternal great-grandmother, but Maglor could see only his father in the obstinate tilt of her chin, the fierceness of her gaze. Stories told to him portrayed Míriel as a gentle soul with a delicate beauty whereas her great-granddaughter possessed the allure of a Nogrodian forged blade. Anything short of cautious handling could result in a dire wound. 

Nimaril, born Meldalmë Ninquimarilla, appeared softer than her sibling, but it was a well-crafted ruse. She was just as sharp, if not sharper in her own way. Pale eyes smiled along with full lips but did so with secrets unwilling to be shared. Rumors had it she shared her revered cousin’s aptitude for foresight, but knowing her nature, she very well could have started those rumors herself. Purposefully wild locks twisted into a number of braids with silver bells and other treasures woven in entrapped the sunlight. She looked far too much like her mother for old wounds, never fully healed, not to tear open once more. 

Both his daughters bore hardened hearts – impenetrable as mithril and unforgiving as the Helcaraxë. Although they still lived, Maglor counted them among the causalities of his Oath. How could he have been so ignorant to think the blood he spilt would not stain them as well? The blackened smoke of his father’s fiery rage had blurred his vision to the point of utter blindness, and his children suffered for it. 

Maglor knew he should have abstained from taking the Oath for the sake of his daughters. Instead, he had slain their mother’s people in order to steal the boats that their grandfather and uncles built only to then burn them. Those beautiful boats, and as they turned to ash, so did his chance of earning his wife’s forgiveness. 

Of all the guilt that weighed heavy upon his heart, he grieved the most for his children. To see his estranged daughters with Elrond, his stolen son, was near too much to bear, but it was not the first time nor would it be the last the embodiment of his mistakes gathered together. As much as it pained him, it was also a simple pleasure, one of his few, to witness their kinship flourish. 

Less to his pleasure and more to his pain, a fourth party member sat beside Elrond, lightly chatting with the noble lord in the manner of old friends. The ner should have been Elros, but fate was not so kind. Maglor knew him to be Idhren, once called Alassërya Isquanon, the brother to his daughters but not his son. It was a festering thorn in his side that only grew more putrid as the years dragged ever onwards. Yet, he could hate neither Idhren nor the ner’s father, as it was his own failings that had forced his wife’s hand in the complicated matter. 

Ai, his wife… somehow both wrathful typhoon and safe harbor at once. Maglor oft swore he had married one of Ossë's tempests masquerading as a Telerin nís. 

Falling in love with her had felt like drowning. For a time, his head remained above water, but little by little, her current pulled him further from shore, and then all at once, he found himself submerged under the surface of her ocean. Yet, loving her felt like breathing. Her absence the ache of a terribly long exhale. Her presence the sweet relief of a desperately wanted inhale. So strange that he could only breath whilst drowning but such was the happily paid price of loving a sea storm. 

Even now, he felt an ache in his chest at the thought of her. The long years that had passed since their volatile separation could not dull the pain of her absence. It was as though he had not drawn a new breathe in Ages. 

Peels of laughter erupted from the party – a sweeter song than any he could compose – but he was not privy to the joke. The silver bells in Nimaril’s hair chimed a tuneless song as she threw back her head to laugh with wild abandon. His tempest wife wore silver bells as well. Bells and pearls and seashells. Maglor had always loved her hair, a windswept tangle of song and sea. 

It’s what he had first noticed about his future wife. Telperion’s light had turned the silver bells and shimmering pearls into glittering stars among the black nightscape of her braids. Despite finding the effect quite becoming, fool that he had been at the time, Maglor still went on to enlist her aide in the romantic pursuit of her cousin...a most foolish endeavor in the end. How he wished to be that foolish youth again, to have a chance at making things right by his wife and children. Alas, such was not possible. 

All that was left to him was the chiming of silver bells that dug up memories he’d long since tried to bury.


End file.
